Tony De Bolfo, the author of the Carlton history book, “Out of the Blue” looks back 30 years to the appointment of David Parkin as the new coach of Carlton.
This is the first extract
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It was Thursday, September 30, 1980 - the day the man later acknowledged as the Club’s Senior Coach of the Team of the 20th century finally committed to Carlton . . . and not for the first time either.
Today, on the thirtieth anniversary of David Parkin’s appointment as Senior Coach, Tony De Bolfo examines the machinations which led to the Blues committing to “the Hawthorn bloke” amid the tumult which had enveloped both clubs at boardroom level.
This is the first extract.
David Parkin can’t remember exactly when it happened, but he knows it was some time early in September 1980. Hawthorn’s season was now at an end, the team having finished an unpalatable eighth, and the senior coach had already committed his energies to the Hawks’ ’81 campaign.
What then happened set in motion the more dramatic of football developments, culminating in one of the game’s most respected figures ending his unbroken 20-year association with ‘The Family Club’ and committing his coaching energies to the only team old Carlton knows.
“I was working in my study at about one o’clock in the morning when I got a tap on the front door. It was a bloke from the Hawthorn board, Don Douglas, who was a terrific fellow to me,” Parkin said.
“The Hawthorn board must have met at the tail-end of the season that September, seeing we didn’t make the finals, and there was talk of them employing Peter Hudson and a few other people. And Don Douglas was standing on my front door step at 1am with tears streaming down his face, saying ‘I don’t want to be a Judas, but I need to tell you that your position’s been discussed by the board and I think you deserve better’.”
Parkin, who had coached Hawthorn to a premiership just two years previous, didn’t bother seeking a second opinion. The veteran of 211 senior matches, a club best and fairest in ’65 and his club’s captain in a premiership year, returned to his study, promptly penned his letter of resignation and hand delivered it that night after letting himself into Glenferrie Oval with a master key.
When the Hawthorn board, under the presidency of the late Ron Cook, resolved not to accept the coach’s resignation, a meeting was called in which the legendary John Kennedy, amongst others, was a participant.
Parkin remained less than enthused. “I told them that I’d done my bit, I didn’t really want to work with a club that wasn’t satisfied - and clearly they weren’t - so it was stupid for me to continue . . . and I didn’t withdraw my resignation,” Parkin said.
“Then in a very short time, maybe a day or two later, Carlton came to me again and offered me the job. A lot of people thought I had the Carlton job in hand, and that I resigned on the basis that I was going to a wealthier club because I knew the job was there. But that was absolutely untrue. I didn’t have any idea. I thought I’d done my time, I’d had a good innings and I was quite happy to continue my university work. I was just a bit lucky to be picked up at that stage by that club.
“At Carlton I was never stupid about putting people on or getting resources or facilities or equipment or whatever, without a good justification. But the great thing was that I was given every opportunity, and while John [Elliott] was an autocratic, dictatorial, very difficult bloke, in terms of empowering me to do the job and giving me the resources to complete it without me ever being over the top or stupid about spending the money, it was so much easier in a sense at Carlton because we were able to match anyone else in the competition who was doing something different.”
It wasn’t the first time that Parkin had been the subject of Carlton overtures. Few would realise that the man actually got the gig in early 1976 - a tumultuous year at Princes Park given that the then coach John Nicholls had suddenly tended his resignation and the general manager Allen Cowie collapsed and died of a heart attack a few days after the opening round.
“I was actually appointed coach of Carlton in 1976. It happened after Ivan Rohrt came to see me at my home in Mt Waverley,” Parkin recalled.
“I agreed in principle to coach Carlton, having been convinced to do so by Wes [Lofts] and Jack Wrout, but then I went to the principal of the teachers college who said ‘You’ve got to make up your mind whether you work in football or be here at teachers college’.
“He didn’t say I couldn’t [coach], but he said if I did there’d be no future there. So I pulled the pin on Carlton the next day. I told them I couldn’t come because I wasn’t allowed to because of my work. Fortunately he [the principal] retired two years later, the Hawthorn job came up and when that was offered the new boss of the university said ‘Go for your life - we’re happy for you to do it - you’ll be able to combine both okay’.”
Nineteen hundred and eighty-one proved a pivotal year for a number of clubs in terms of their coaching appointments. In the wake of Parkin’s departure, Hawthorn appointed Allan Jeans to the senior coach’s position, while Ron Barassi and Malcolm Blight accepted the tenures at Melbourne and North Melbourne - the clubs they had represented with such distinction as players.
And over at Windy Hill, Essendon opted for a coaching unknown by the name of Kevin Sheedy, on the casting vote of the club’s then President.
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“Out of the Blue” is a magnificent 250-page coffee table publication on the defining moments of the Carlton Football Club and there are a strictly limited number of copies still available exclusively from The Carlton Shop.
Click here to order online
